A Dirty Business
by Frog-the-alchemist
Summary: In the town of Clayport, the Mafia rules the streets. Arthur Kirkland, a rookie police officer taking care of his young son, is determined to put it to an end and bring the notorious mob boss Lovino Vargas to justice. But what will he sacrifice?
1. Prologue

The night was calm. The moon shone brightly in the dark sky, chasing all night clouds away, and casting long, dark shadows across the street and into the alleyways. Streetlights dimly glowed with their soft yellow light. Most of all, it was quiet.

...

A young man spilled into the street and onto the sidewalk from one of the side streets that branched onto it. He dashed over the pavement, his quick footsteps echoing across the empty street. Messy black hair blew into his almond eyes and sweat dripped down the side of his face. He hugged a small laptop to his chest with his arms and clutched a small notebook in his hands.

_Thud._

He heard the small noise at the end of the street and his eyes widened. He pushed himself to run faster, his chest heaving from the effort of his sprint. He rounded the corner and his laptop flew out of his arms and onto the pavement, breaking into plastic pieces, but he kept running. Adrenaline pushed him forward faster, and also shoved any thoughts of the laptop far into the crevices of his mind. It wasn't important. The only thing that was important was the notebook. He _had_ to get out of there. The sound of twin footsteps echoed in the air, he was _sure_ he could hear the other approaching, getting ever closer.

_I gotta find an alley, side street, crossway, anything! I gotta get out of here and somewhere fast! It doesn't matter, I just gotta get the notebook to someone!_

Wham! He rammed right into a trash can and went flying to the ground, bringing the trashcan with him. It hit the cement with a metallic clang and all futile hopes of his pursuer not knowing his location flew out the window.

"What the hell-" He heard the faint voice from around the corner.

He sucked in a quick breath of air and propelled himself off the pavement and into an immediate running start. His eyes scanned over the entire dark street, looking for any turn, alley or alternate path, but there was only the one street going forward, lined with empty buildings.

"Hey! Come back here you little bastard~!" A soft voice playfully called from only a few steps behind him.

_Shit!_ _He caught up!_ He dared not look back, he could not afford to slow at all. He just ran faster, with only one thought. To get the info in that notebook somewhere safe! Suddenly something popped up in his peripheral vision. An opening in the buildings! That meant an alley way! And a way out! He quickly turned and dashed with all his might into the opening and-

It was a dead end.

"Looks like I caught you."

The youth spun around.

"Y-you..." He whispered. He could feel a chill run down his spine as he looked at the figure standing at the front of the alley way, all his figures masked by the cloak of night.

"You run fast." the shadowy figure said darkly, taking a menacing step forward. The young man took another step back, clutching his notebook closer to his chest.

"Now," the man took another step closer. "Give. Me. The _notebook_."

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he whispered something inaudible.

"Hmm?" the other stepped even closer.

"I s-said," the young man stopped and swallowed. "no."

"What did you say? I don't think I heard you right."

"I said NO!" he shouted talking a brave step forward.

The other man chuckled darkly.

"Hmm. That's what I thought." He suddenly stepped forward and grabbed the youths shirt collar and shoved him down to the ground. He slammed his foot down on his chest and all the young man's breath escaped him in one wheeze.

"A pity. If you had just given it over, I wouldn't of had to do this."

"Y-you bastard," he hissed. "W-who the hell are you?"

The man reached into the inside of his coat and pulled out a gleaming, silver gun. He aimed it right at the dark haired boy's forehead. His slanted brown eyes widened in fear.

"My name? Lovino Vargas."

The man's face contorted into a sinister grin, his teeth glinting in the moonlight.

"But you can call me Lovi."


	2. Chapter 1

"God, what the hell happened here?"

"What the hell does it look like? A damn homicide."

"Geez, don't get your underpants in a bunch," Alfred muttered under his breath. "It was just a stupid question."

He sighed as he looked at the scene blocked off by yellow police tape in front of him.

_This is gonna be one hell of a Monday._

Alfred hadn't exactly known what to expect he would be dealing with, Yao had been brief on the radio: _Jones, meet me at the alley way between the apartment buildings and the pawn shop on Derwell Street. Now. _

He was sure it would be something petty, the worst it could be was theft or something. But he sure as hell wasn't expecting this.

"Jones!" Yao barked. "Are you gonna stand there gaping like an idiot all day or what?"

Alfred took a last swig from his plastic coffee mug and stepped over the police tape stretched across the alley's opening, and into the gruesome scene. Blood was smeared on the ground in a long broad line around and behind a dumpster, small droplets were scattered in other places. Garbage littered the corner by an overturned trash can. And just poking out behind the dumpster was a bit of familiar white cloth. Alfred immediately knew what it was before he could see all of it.

He walked over to it, careful to avoid stepping on the blood specks on the ground, and knelt down. He slowly lifted the sheet off, revealing the young man underneath.

_Asian male. Brown almond eyes, dark short hair. Probably Japanese. Can't be any older than twenty._

The boy's face was pale, and his brown eyes stared blankly into the sky in a way that sent chills down Alfred's spine. He had a long cut across his neck, blood had dripped down and pooled around his head. His white jacket was completely soaked with the red liquid. Alfred felt a little nauseous.

_Shot in the chest and throat slit. Looks like he bled out a lot. _

"So," he somberly called out " Yao, who is this kid?"

The asian man leaning against the wall looked up from his laptop. His brown slanted eyes briefly scanned the computer.

"We ID'ed him as Kiku Honda. 19-year old journalism student at the local university." He paused for a moment. "Hmm. Turns out he had some anti-mafia blog. Posted some pretty good info too. It's actually helped us solve some cases in the past."

Alfred felt his heart sink a little. He pulled the sheet back over Kiku's head and stood up. "Well, now we have a "why". What exactly happened here?"

Yao set his laptop down on the ground and walked over.

"Some lady opened her window to let in some air this morning," he pointed to a single window on the side of one of the walls, "and saw _him_ laying in the alley. That's when we got the call, and _I _had to drag myself out of bed at 5:30 while everyone else was having sweet little sugar plum dreams in their goddamn beds," he added the last bit spitefully.

"Looks like he pissed off the wrong people," Alfred ran his hands through his short blond hair.

"What I don't understand," Yao added, "is why the mafia just left his body so blatantly out in the open."

Alfred could feel rage building up in his body. -

"Because, it was a message."

He chuckled dryly. "Sheesh, what a backwards world. You try to expose a little corruption and you get shot at for it."

"Hey you don't have to tell me twice, I got more bullet holes in my ass than your grandma's quilt thanks to this job."

They both were silent for a moment.

"Hey, Yao, did you call-"

"Yes, yes and yes, I did the whole procedure while you where taking your sweet time getting here" Yao snapped his laptop shut.

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, ponytail." Alfred quipped.

"Hey, shut up, you didn't have to get here at six-o-freaking-clock this morning and have to deal with all the Looky-Lou's trying to see the murder scene while I'm trying to do my work! I almost shot a couple people, and I'll shoot _you_ if you don't stop calling me ponytail, you moron!"

"I'll stop calling you 'Ponytail' when you cut that stupid thing off. It's not the 60's, Gramps."

"Hey!" Yao grabbed his ponytail protectively. "It's not stupid, you bastard!"

"You're a thirty-five year old police officer, and you look like a girl."

"Shut up, you bastard!"

Alfred took a few steps back."Well, you can-"

His heel caught on something and he stumbled back a little bit. _The hell...?_

A small notebook was lying on the ground where Alfred had stumbled. He picked it up. The notebook was brown with _Kiku Honda_ written neatly in red ink. Underneath the name, written in smaller messier letters, was_ Mafia Info: Drug Tracking, Tony Rossi, Vinny Conti, Gi_...

The rest of the letters in the last name were too smudged to read. He slowly opened the notebook, probably filled to the brim with vital information and-

"Jesus Christ!" Alfred almost dropped the notebook out of shock.

Yao ran over. "What is it?"

Alfred handed him the notebook. "I found it on the ground. Belonged to the kid but, the inside..."

Yao opened the notebook, to find a mass of sticky, clumped-together pages soaked in.. blood.

"Dear God..."

Alfred took a bag out of his pocket marked _Evidence #1 _and gingerly dropped it in the bag.

"Yao, can you look up the names Tony Rossi and Vinny Conti for me?"

He picked up his laptop.

"Wait, how do you spell the first name?"

...

Alfred took a long drag on his cigarette and leaned back on the edge of his police car sitting in the police station parking lot. He watched the smoke spiral up into the clear blue sky and fade away into the heavens. It was a gorgeous morning, the sky was pastel blue with a few clouds dotting the edge of the endless atmosphere. He put the cigarette to his lips again and let the smoke envelop his lungs.

_He was trying to kick the habit, he really was!_

Well, not really. To be honest, he didn't care. At first it had just been a social thing, if he went to party or something he might have one, but it had become more of a habit once cases had started getting... darker. Everyone needed a release when stuff got nasty; Yao did his martial arts thing, Vijay ate buckets of peanut butter. Mattie even used to smoke pot.

And in this town, things had a tendency to get nasty.

Clayport was a small town. It was a modern, but quaint city that was very under the radar. Almost no one, even neighboring towns, knew about it and if they did, they didn't really care. It was nothing really noticeable, just the average town. At least, on the surface. Underneath it's seemingly normal exterior, it harbored a dark secret. The town was completely ruled by the mafia. Only the town's inhabitants knew of it's sinister underbelly.

Most chose to ignore it.

And those who didn't, _Well_, Alfred thought grimly, _This morning's case was one example of what happens to people who stick their noses in places they shouldn't. _

Alfred blew the grey smoke out and let it drift up.

_And it could happen to me._

He was well aware of the dangers his occupation provided for him.

Alfred F. Jones- the "F" stood for Franklin, not "freaking awesome" as he often said it did- was a police officer in this dangerous town. He was a 23 year-old bachelor and loving every moment of it.

He let his eyes close for a second and the image of Kiku's bloody body flashed in front of his eyes. His eyes snapped back open.

Well, most of it, anyway.

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it on the heel of his shoe. Smoke time was over. He bent down and looked at himself in the rearview mirror in the police car. He smoothed down his scruffy short blonde hair in a vain attempt to make it look like he had actually brushed it that morning, completely ignoring the stubborn cowlick on the top of his head. He took his rectangular glasses off and rubbed all the sleep out of his blue eyes. Alfred didn't really feel getting yelled at by Irene for looking "unacceptable for work" again.

He straightened the collar of his police uniform and threw the pack of cigarettes in the passenger seat.

Time to work. A murder case wasn't just gonna solve itself.

He pushed open the glass doors and the familiar _Ring-a-ding!_ blared from an unseen speaker above him.

"Geez, can't we change that stupid tone to something, oh, I don't know, that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out?"

A grey haired woman sitting behind the front desk looked up from the computer.

"Good Morning to you too, Alfred."

Alfred flopped dramatically on her desk.

"So, you do anything interesting this weekend, Irene? Get together with a friend? Learn to waterski? Get abducted by aliens?"

She chuckled.

"Yes Alfred, I got abducted by aliens. Now if I'm not mistaken, there's a pile of paper work waiting on your desk."

"I think you're mistaken."

"..."

He sighed. "Fine, fine. You win."

She smiled. "There's a good boy."

Alfred stuck his tongue out.

Irene rolled her eyes and went back to what she was doing on her computer.

Alfred had taken liking to Irene as soon as he had met the clever septuagenarian. She had starting working there to be closer with her husband, who was a police officer. However, he cheated on her and they had gotten a divorce years ago. Even though her husband had moved away with a second wife long before Alfred had even graduated high school, she kept her job there. Irene was one of the few things that made days like today more bearable.

He dramatically dragged his feet on the ground the entire way to his desk. He could see the stack form the other end of the empty room. Everyone else was out patrolling or at the Kiku Honda murder scene. One of the downsides to being an officer in a small town like Clayport was the fact that there were very few people on the police force. Which met that everyone was always busy. Which meant that the police station was rarely full.

So it was just him, the stack of papers, and Irene at the front to reprimand him if he slacked off.

He slumped down in his chair and started flipping through the paper work stack.

_Damn. _Al wanted to slam his head on the desk. _Some of this stuff is _old_! How long have I been putting this stuff off? _

He leafed through the rest of the papers. A single paper caught his eye.

...

"Wait, since when are we getting a new guy on the squad?"

Alfred could hear the sound of a palm slapping against a forehead from Irene's desk.

He looked back down at the paper. He just had a sheet of facts to tell him about the new recruit. They used to print out little pictures on the papers, but when ink got expensive, anything that absolutely wasn't necessary in color was printed in black and white. The condensed and now black and white profile pics looked nothing at all like a person's head and when Yao had almost had a heart attack and started screaming about some sort of "Chinese devil-spirit" or something they had gotten rid of the pics all together. Now he only had a page of stats and a few basic descriptions.

_Hmmm. _

_Arthur Kirkland, huh. _


End file.
